As readers likely know by now, Jamie Dimon hastily arranged an after hours conference call today, in which he admitted to $2 billion in losses in the last six weeks from a trade by the “London Whale”, Bruno Michel Iksil in the bank’s Chief Investment Office, with as much as another potential $1 billion in losses in the offing.
Read more...This is a short clip and I am sure you’ll enjoy it.
Read more...Reader Hecht pointed out a new piece by Steven Davidoff at the New York Times’ Dealbook, illustrating the lengths to which the Fed will go to defend incumbent bank managements.
Read more...An article by law professor Linda Coco, “Debtor’s Prison in the Neoliberal State: ‘Debtfare’ and the Cultural Logics of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005,” (hat tip Michael Hudson) is a an informative, if disheartening, overview of the significance of the bankruptcy law reforms implemented in 2005.
One might cynically observe that after 25 years of making it easier for consumers to borrow and encouraging them to load up, banks realized that they might have too much of a good thing and realized they needed to improve their ability to extract payments from the credit junkies they had created.
Read more...As readers may know, a recent post, “Frontline’s Astonishing Whitewash of the Crisis,”discussed the first half of the Frontline series, “Money, Power & Wall Street.” Producers Mike Wiser and Martin Smith sent a letter taking issue with this review, and I made an exception to my usual practice and posted their missive.
The major dispute is over whether their series lets the financial services industry off too lightly.
Read more...strong>Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.
To know the Washington Consensus as a regular citizen is to hate the Consensus.
Read more...Europe greeted with excitement—or exasperation—the arrival of the “President of Growth,” François Hollande. And outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed that he’d quit politics. He complained about journalists dogging him. “I’m spied on,” he said (ironically). “I hope they will leave me alone.” But that’s precisely what they won’t do because, on May 15, he’ll lose his immunity that has protected him against a ton of malodorous allegations.
Read more...I received this e-mail last week. I will issue my rebuttal Tuesday during the day. Check back in then!
Read more...This has been a bad stretch for advocates of financial reform – and therefore for the economy as a whole. One after the other, new financial regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank law are being gutted or delayed by regulators and Congress, while the bankers – escorted by a phalanx of paid economists, lawyers and lobbyists – are squealing “wee, wee, wee” all the way home.
Read more...Barack Obama remains an icon to many on what passes for the left in America despite incontrovertible evidence that he does not represent their interests. There are many contributing factors, including his considerable skills as a speaker and his programmatic effort to neuter liberal critics by getting their funding cut.
A central component of the seemingly impenetrable Obama mythology is his personal history: a black man, son of a broken home, who nevertheless got on the fast track to financial success by becoming editor of the Harvard Law Review, but turned instead to working with and later representing a particularly disadvantaged community, the South Side of Chicago.
Even so, this story does not quite add up.
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
Last night the ECB met in Barcelona and once again held on rates. Mario Draghi opening statement is below. As I have spoken about many times previously I considers Mario Draghi’s statement about what is happening in Europe to be a view from some other planet.
Read more...It’s bad enough that the overhyped mortgage settlement was a big victory for the banks at the expense of homeowners and the rule of law. It let servicers out of considerable liability at very low real cost, and even that is offset by the transfer from pension funds and savers to the banks by letting them write down securitized first loans without wiping out bank owned second liens that sit behind them.
But we now learn there are other gimmies that appear to have resulted from negotiating incompetence.
Read more...Adam Davidson is moving up in the world. He has gone from fellating the 1% to the top 0.1%.
Read more...I got a message from a regular reader:
Read more...Banking maven Chris Whalen has a must-read piece on the reckless real estate risk taking underway at Wells Fargo, the sanctimonious #4 bank.
Read more...